Why the Poor People’s Campaign Is Thinking Past the Midterm Election
On Thursday night, November 1, just five days before the midterm elections, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, hosted a different kind of election-season event.
It wasn’t a fundraiser.
It wasn’t a chance for a candidate to talk at the communities that they are hoping to represent.
It wasn’t solely focused on the upcoming election at all.
Thursday’s event was something very different. It was Pennsylvania’s first Poor People’s Hearing, a chance to lift up those that are traditionally left out of electoral conversations: the poor; the directly impacted by the inseparable evils of systemic racism, poverty, militarism, ecological devastation and our nation’s distorted moral narrative; and faith leaders.
Around election time, politicians from both major parties will unveil policies, statements and proposals designed to target the poor. The Poor People’s Hearing was a chance to put the system on trial for waging a war on poor people and using ‘divide and conquer’ politics to create divisions among oppressed people.
On Thursday evening, a panel of directly impacted organizers and activists from across Pennsylvania of different races, religions, generations and representing both rural and urban geographical areas — smashed the narrative of diversionary politics, and instead, discussed the ways in which we — the 40 percent of people in Pennsylvania, or 5.1 million residents that are poor or low-income — are unified in our struggle.
“[During tonight’s hearing,] we will not be spoken about and will not be told how to fix our problems; we speak and we craft our path out of the mire created by centuries of intentional political disenfranchisement and economic abandonment. We will not allow another election cycle go by where politicians run for office without talking about the issues we face on the daily,” said Borja Gutierrez, State College, PA Poor People’s Campaign quad-chair.
The Poor People’s Hearing panel of impacted speakers included:
Marlene, Cumberland County — Movement of Immigrant Leaders in PA (MILPA)
Tammy Rojas, Lancaster — Put People First! PA
Carolyn Hill, Philadelphia — Global Women’s Strike
Yvonne Newkirk, Philadelphia — CADBI — Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration
Jennina Gorman, Altoona — Put People First! PA
Rabbi Michael Pollack, Philadelphia — MarchOnHarrisburg
Karen Feridun, Berks County — Better Path Coalition
Theomusicology: Jake Butterly, Montgomery County — Put People First! PA
Emcees: Nijmie Zakkiyyah Dzurinko, Philadelphia — PA Poor People’s Campaign Quad-Chair and Borja Gutierrez, State College — PA Poor People’s Campaign Quad-Chair
Before the hearing began, Rev. Ann Keeler Evans, PA Poor People’s Campaign Quad-Chair from Northumberland County, offered an opening prayer to be repeated by the audience:
“It is good to be together.
Something amazing is going to happen here tonight.”
During the panel, speakers discussed the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections recent inhumane policies against inmates and their families, deportation, family separation, the vicious massacre at Tree of Life synagogue, the environmental devastation waged on PA land through unfettered fracking, the war on poor and already overworked mothers, and the ongoing attacks on Medicaid. One theme throughout each speech remained constant: there is a war being waged on poor and marginalized people.
“This country has a long and ugly history of forcibly separating families. We are seeing the continuation of this brutal legacy today. Immigrant families at our borders were indigenous to these lands long before colonization,” said Jennina Gorman, who is of Iroquois and Irish heritage, and whose five children were removed from her care, after she was falsely charged with ‘negligence’ during a difficult housing situation.
She was told she could have her children back in three weeks. It’s been five years, and the state still has her children. She is not even permitted to visit them, despite repeatedly doing everything she’s been asked.
Gorman’s story sounds in some ways strikingly similar to another panel speaker, Marlene from MILPA, who discussed the difficulty of her life and the lives of her children after her significant other was abruptly deported by ICE after living in the U.S for more than 14 years with no criminal record.
After his deportation, she lost her job, her home, and her car. She was forced to work three jobs and move in with her parents.
“Before he was deported, I used to work 40 hours a week, and my weekends were to spend time with my three children,” Marlene said in a tear-filled testimony. “That was family time. Now that I have two jobs, I don’t have time to spend with my kids or to help them cope with the difficult situation.” She also discussed the difficulty of affording healthcare for herself and her children, despite working two jobs.
Yvonne Newkirk of CADBI, the mother of a lifer, spoke about another way that families are being separated: by inhumane prison policies recently imposed by the Department of Corrections under Governor Wolf.
“The journey to the prisons takes us anywhere from 3–5 hours, and the visit itself another 4–6 hours. The vending machines are empty, and quite a few inmates are advising family members not to visit. This is especially hard on diabetics, the elderly, children, and medications that require food. It seems the mission of the no-food policy [during and after family visits] is to test the very fibre of life, to decrease human rights.”
These stories also echoed the testimonies of Carolyn Hill and Tammy Rojas:
“Every time I get on the bus with my three grandkids, I am supposed to pay full fare for each of us, which means $10 for each ride each way. This is a hardship not only for myself but other poor moms and grandmas,” said Hill, discussing the high cost of public transportation for the poor in Philadelphia. “Now SEPTA wants to bring a power plant into our neighborhood which will make pollution even worse. Neighbors are fighting this. Philadelphia already has the highest rate of asthma of all large US cities.”
“This myth that people receiving benefits don’t work and only want a hand out is rhetoric that people in power use to keep us divided and to justify their war on the poor and it needs to stop NOW!,” said Tammy Rojas, who discussed work requirements for Medicaid, the need for single-payer healthcare for all, and her own serious health conditions caused by Medicaid’s lack of dental coverage and lapses in health coverage.
“Due to the lapse in time where I went uninsured over the years I have developed more serious health issues that could have been prevented if I had received more adequate care at the time. I was recently diagnosed with advanced periodontal disease which can lead to other major health issues such as respiratory disease or even cause a stroke. My left foot is no longer responding to the “cheaper” version of treatment and with that comes the difficulty of standing and walking. Making it difficult to do my job, or any other physical activity.”
In between each speaker, Quad-Chair Nijmie Zakkiyyah Dzurinko asked the audience to participate by repeating a Poor People’s Campaign mantra: “Somebody’s hurting our people. It’s gone on far too long and we won’t be silent anymore!”
Before the evening closed, Rabbi Michael Pollack discussed the voter suppression tactics used in Pennsylvania — the fifth most corrupt state in the country — which allow for these kind of policies: no early voting, no same day registration, and no automatic voter registration.
Karen Feridun of A Better Path Coalition added another outcome of this corruption — environmental devastation. “Our state government gave Royal Dutch Shell $1.65 billion in tax breaks to build a cracker plant in Beaver County to make single use plastics that pollute the ocean and kill aquatic life. A short time later, Governor Wolf commissioned a report that concluded that Western PA could support four more cracker plants.”
However, Thursday’s event not only revolved around the “plight” of the impacted speakers — the conversation was also centered around the “fight” and “insight” — the education and organizing being waged to build the power of the poor and dispossessed to reclaim and regain the public narrative of our nation hijacked by the few to the detriment of the 140 million poor and near-poor people in the United States.
“The Poor People’s Campaign exists so that we can stop fighting alone and we can begin to fight together,” said Marlene.
“The Global Women’s Strike is supporting a federal welfare bill, the RISE Out of Poverty Act,” added Carolyn. “And we want help getting a campaign going for kids and poor people to ride free on SEPTA.”
“The Haudenosaunee have a saying, when we face difficult decisions: ‘We must think of our children’s children’s children in all we do’. That is why I stand with the Poor People’s Campaign, so that future generations won’t have to fight these battles, and families will no longer be separated,” said Jennina.
“We are not single issue organizers. We see how our all of our struggles are connected. We are building a movement that is big enough and strong enough so that we can get what we need on all fronts…This country is on a dangerous path, and the only way to get off that path is to organize,” Dzurinko said.
The Poor People’s Hearings across the country marked the beginning of Phase II during which the campaign is focused on shifting the narrative, building power among the poor and moral leaders, and impacting elections and policies around systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism and the war economy, and the distorted moral narrative of white supremacist Christian nationalism.
“Coming out of Phase 1’s 40 days of nonviolent moral fusion direct action with greater unity, shared experience, and sense of purpose, with a knowledge of what is possible, with a new imagination of what could and should be, PA PPC’s nonviolent army of the poor and dispossessed is now building deeper and wider throughout the Commonwealth across the color line and other lines of difference, advancing in our collective efforts to challenge the intertwined evils of systemic racism, poverty, the war economy and militarism, ecological devastation, and the distorted moral narrative of our nation.”
“For Phase II, we are engaging in deep dive organizing, mobilizing, base-building, and outreach, establishing real bonds with the communities that we live in, leaving behind the shallow tactics of traditional, transactional politics and engaging in the real work of community building for change, actually talking with people in the Commonwealth about how the evils we are fighting to address are impacting their lives, recruiting them into the movement, uniting them together to fight for our common agenda, and registering them to vote. In other words, we are working to build a new America with the people, instead of without them,” Quad-Chair Borja Gutierrez explained.
What does that mean for the midterm election? That no blue wave or red wave, or any politician is going to save the poor people of this country.
As Rabbi Michael said, “Voting is important. But we need to be honest about the limits of voting at this moment in time, and the necessity to build movement power over time. Democracy is organizing all the time, it is building fusion movement power. It is breaking down the divides that corrupt politicians rely on and building beloved community and a world of justice so that we may survive and thrive.”
Regardless of who was elected in the midterms or on any upcoming election, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival’s mission remains the same: a multi-year effort to build the power of the poor and dispossessed, shift the distorted moral narrative of white supremacist Christian nationalism and reveal that the 140 million poor are not going anywhere, that we will vote, and that we will not be ignored nor will be silenced anymore.
